What Is “content Is King” and Content Marketing

1. What is “Content is King” and Content Marketing

The statement “Content is king” is suggested by Bill Gates in 1996. The statement refers to content is expect to make much of the real money on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting (Gates, 1996). Content includes text, music, game, software, sports programming, video and classified advertisement (Gates, 2015). King refers to the element which could gain much of the real money on the internet (Gates, 2015). “Content is king” and content marketing have commonalities and differences on e-marketing. “Content is king” emphasis content could solely earn much of the money on the internet; while content marketing is the creation of content with intention to distribute it, and engage with highly targeted audiences, and attract new customers in the process (Pulizzi, 2012). Content marketing make content visible, for example, they make easily visible text on website by using color contrast. It also encourages the use of backlinks for search engine optimization (SEO). Backlinks links websites together, so that users could easily transit between sites (SEOmark Corporation, 2015). Social shares and optimize the website can engage the clients through share information on social medias. Tagging useful content and quoting the important point on Google engine search can develop an optimized website. Content impacts todays’ marketing. It changes buyer behaviors as it provided valuable, expertise and useful information for consumers (Marketing Donut, 2015).The content could educate consumers, show them best practice, and tell them what to look for (Marketing Donut, 2015). The e-marketers can also create trust by using content to solve problems from customers (Marketing Donut, 2015). It creates loyalty when the content is genuinely useful.

2. Websites and Blogs

Websites are built with heavy contents, for instance, text, images, video, music and files that uploaded by website designers. ‘Content is King’ would be a suitable statement to describe the importance of content in terms of websites profit making. The development of corporate websites is considered as one of the approaches for content marketing. According to KingContent (2014), EMPIRE, a famous US crew was going into the Australia market; however, they were virtually unknown. Therefore, they had created a microsite with heavy contents: vibrant videos, descriptions and imagery. During the campaign, there are 26,000 visitors per month and 40% of them become buyers; and the total revenue generated by the campaign was $5.22M (KingContent, 2014). This case had proven that good content could earn money on the internet when developing corporate websites. Blog is also built with heavy content; however, it requires suitable distribution channels to distribute the content in order to earn money on the internet. Blogs are written by bloggers and they neither get paid nor pay fees to blog. The major income of blogs is advertising income and it depends on the view rate (Perelman, 2014). Blogs have to maintain and increase their view rate in order to be profitable. One of the most valuable blogs in the world, BuzzFeed, had their agency strategy VP, Jonathan Perelman, emphasized that “Content is King, Distribution is Queen and she wears the pants” (Perelman, 2014; Bloomberg, 2015). He explains good content has to go with suitable distribution channels in order to success. As BuzzFeed had their distribution focuses on social streams, both social views and seed views had at least doubled blogs’ view rate in average and boost advertising revenue (Perelman, 2014).

3. Effectiveness of Content Marketing

To measure the effectiveness of content marketing, there was a survey conducted called Ascend2 Content Marketing Trends Survey, which looks at the effectiveness and difficulty of using different types of content (McGee, M. 2015). It revealed that 89% of companies using content marketing have found it effectiveness and almost 9/10 companies say that it’s either more effective or somewhat effective. It also indicated lead generation and improving customer engagement was the two most important goals of content marketing strategy whereas news releases were the least effective. Video content was indicated as the most complex to create whereas in terms of effectiveness and easiness, participants voted articles and case studies were better. The ultimate goal of content marketing is to draw attention. The signal of successful content marketing is when that attention results in action. This is proven in ALS ice bucket challenge campaign where quality content is combined with social media. This campaign has gone viral across social media channels enough to create hashtags and an unprecedented, active response. ALS Association’s website does not disappoint. It provides high quality content that covers everything from the disease they represent to the latest news surrounding the challenge. This campaign was effective because the content was light, it was simple and unique, allowed personalization and creativity.

4. Content Provider (Netflix)

With the increasing of Internet services over the last decade, it has seen the creation of new business model centers on the selling of content through subscription services like Netflix, Spotify and Pandora. The importance of content is proven in Netflix’s success, with over 62 million subscribers in over 50 countries (Netflix 2015). For these providers, content has becomes a point of difference between itself and its competitors. The Wall Street Journal posted an article,